Anybody who's tried their hand at sailing a little two-person Sunfish trainer knows you sometimes need a lot more than four arms to feel like you're in control of the thing. Expand that vessel out to 72 feet and try racing a 32,000-mile course on the open seas, and things get a little tougher. Oh, and while you're at it, do it all against prevailing currents.

As our writer Thomas Jamieson explores this week, a little onboard BI technology can yield a lot of smooth sailing. All the competitors in "The Toughest Boat Race In The World" will testify to that.

As Jamieson explains in his story for Business Intelligence Pipeline, "The burden is on each crew … to supply and utilize its own data, which is pulled from standard navigation instruments and configurations such as sail position. All types of variables, including wind speed, tack, state of the sea, and the boat's angle in the water are input into Excel, which serves as [Applix] TM1's standard front-end view and also provides a multi-user environment for the program."

Computing has become pervasive beyond the world of business. So, therefore, has computing data. As more and more of our daily lives yield collectable and analyzable data, business intelligence will finder broader and broader application. And you won't have to circumnavigate the globe to find it at work.

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